Methods and Data Comparability Board Meeting

Herb Brass USEPA/OW/Co-chair

Charlie Peters USGS, Co-chair

Bob Berger EBMUD

Dale Bucks Agricultural Research Service

Bernie Malo ASTM

Robin Nissan Navy

John Klein USGS

Elane Streets Argonne, Nat’l Lab

Rick Heims USGS

Cliff Annis Merck & Co.

Sam Stribling Tetra Tech, Inc.

Chuck Job USEPA/OW/OGWDW

Larry Keith WPI

Donna Francy USGS

Charlie Morgan

Alden Henderson CDC

Jim Boiani DynCorp

Adriana Cantillo NOAA

Richard Ayers VDEQ

Bart Simmons CAEPA

Andy Eaton Std Methods

Katherine Alben NYDH

Ed Santoro DRBC

Harold Aroudel USGS

Abbie Markowitz Tetra Tech, Inc.

Mike Miller WDNR

Jennifer Pitt Tetra Tech, Inc.

Jerry Diamond Tetra Tech, Inc.

Dan Sullivan USGS

Lynn Bradley ASTPH

Matt Brian ETCC

Ed Johnson NOAA

Jim KingDynCorp

Announcements

· Plaques acknowledging departing Board members have been prepared and distributed to Bob Berger, Ann Strong, Barbara Erickson Rogers, Bob Carlson, Merle Shockey, and Gary Cottrell. The Board appreciates all their efforts and contributions.

· Next Board meeting is June 21 - 23 in Madison, WI.

Introductions

Rick Heims, Associate USGS District Chief, welcomed Board members. The District Office is housed with the Department of Geology at California State University, Sacramento, which, Heims noted, is helping to foster collaboration, better trained students, and more applicable courses.

Strategic Direction

· Herb noted that the Board decided to focus on products in the short-term but to not lose sight of long-term activities/tasks that will lead to future products.

· Workgroups may need more non-Board participants to ensure that appropriate expertise is present, and that Board members are not stretched too thin.

· The Board needs to promote outreach avenues to get the Board and its products/activities known. All Workgroups need to focus on outreach as well as technical products/activities.

Board Integration

· Need to keep focus on mission and goals/objectives of the Board: How do users determine whether data and/or methods are comparable? The Board is tackling many pieces of the puzzle. Need to visually see how pieces fit together to help the Board focus and evaluate priorities, and to help communicate Board activities to others. Jerry drafted a strawman integration scheme (see Figure 1) which needs further evaluation and discussion.

· Peer-review of Board products may need to be more formally organized and implemented to ensure reasonably efficient, constructive review of Board products. All peer-review requests should be accompanied by clear directions to reviewers and Board products need to indicate the intended audience.

· Bart noted that NELAC will be voting on a sampling standard this summer. This is an area in need of attention and a window of opportunity for the Board.

· At the NWQM conference in April, there should be a brain-storming session on end goals during each of the three Methods discussion sessions and at the Track reports. This should probably be done for all Tracks at the conference.

· Need to establish the infrastructure to attract resources and Workgroup participants, and to develop a system for how the Board prioritizes its activities. As a FACA-chartered organization, the Board’s recommendations should be treated seriously. There needs to be a process whereby the Boards’ recommendations to the Council are then taken to participating organizations.

· Current focus on watersheds and TMDLs may be a good vehicle for getting out Board products.

· Nutrient method focus needs to be maintained but may be no need for a standing workgroup right now. Need to stimulate workgroup efforts outside the Board.

· Board needs to be clear on charges for Workgroups and what’s expected in terms of products/activities.

WQDE

· Biology Workgroup members provided some modifications/additions to the WQDE-biological elements table. Interested Biology Workgroup members will hold a conference call in early April to finalize changes to the current WQDE-Biological elements table.

· Chemical WQDE table is complete and possibly final.

Accreditation

· Position paper audience discussed and developed primary recommendations. Tetra Tech will edit paper for review in April.

· Herb will forward the Board’s summary of the PT letter to Wendy and others involved in the conference call. Workgroup will also coordinate with NELAC to see if their PT committee has addressed any of the issues discussed in the letter.

PBMS

· Jerry will incorporate the last few edits and get out Draft Final version 3.0 by March 31. This draft should be shared with Khonane, EPA OST, Quality Systems group at NELAC, and ELAB.

· Jerry will incorporate suggestions on Tetra Tech’s draft COD Pilot presentation by March 31. There are probably 3 or 4 sub-slide presentations thus far: one about the Board, a second about the need for PBMS and a Pilot, a third on the Pilot itself and why COD, and a fourth on the CRADA.

· Matt will provide a few slides on CRADAs that will be incorporated into the Pilot presentation.

· Get comments to Matt on the latest CRADA and Statement of Work by March 28. The deliverable at the conference in the CRADA is presentation of the protocol not the results of the Pilot.

· Need to come to closure on CRADA participants. Matt will contact Dennis McChesney and then Jim McComsey from DuPont.

· Dale will send email with contacts.

· Herb will contact Willie and NIST.

· List of proposed labs/participants will be finalized by the conference - 4/21. Rick will provide number of participants Hach can train and equip.

· Prepare 1-2 page summary of Pilot for ACCW. The CRADA SOW may suffice.

· Hach should hear on new COD method ATP from Telliard very soon.

· The Board should plan on submitting an unsolicited proposal for a nutrient pilot to WERF for their review next January.

NEMI

· Need status and timeline developed for Phase 1 by 4/14/00.

· ASTM may have funding support for NEMI. ASTM needs a mock-up of what NEMI may look like. Herb, Larry, and Bernie will follow-up.

· Add Analyte Class field (organics, inorganics, radiochemicals, nutrients, toxicity, suborganismal/biochemical, microbiology, population/community, physical).

· Change “chemical name” to analyte name to accommodate microbial and other biological species names.

· Add Quantification Index Field to be fleshed out in Phase 2.

· Ruggedness is still difficult to quantify. Biological Workgroup proposed using a yes or no as to whether the method has been subjected to ring or inter-lab testing.

· Use Marix/Applicability field to identify type of system for which method applies.

· Need to challenge NEMI architecture in Phase 1 with a range of methods including specific biological methods.

Biology

· Sam Stribling will forward EMAP data elements to compare with WQDE and to begin evaluating the need for a separate WQDE for field biological samples.

· Mike Miller prepared a summary table of Region 5 field methods based on recent survey of Resh and Carter. Mike, Sam, Steve Moulton, others will review the table to identify key method attributes that should be included in method description field for NEMI.

· Steve Moulton working with Carter on a similar survey of macroinvertebrate lab methods.

· Mike, Sam will recruit other experts for a focus/task group to begin developing Pilot ideas, participants. Need to investigate what type of comparability demonstrations have been done and their strengths and weaknesses.

· Sam will incorporate comments and revise issue paper by next Board meeting (take out “non-detects” in analyses and focus on field method performance).

Outreach

· Rick received suggestions for Poster including products/activities from workgroups.

· Poster handout for conference will have list of URLs for Workgroup sites/products.

· Send out Poster/URL handout, fact sheets and link letter in late April when poster and web page are ready.

· Get copyright permission to post published articles on public web page.

· Consider Federal Register announcements of Board and Council to point folks to web page.

· Logo letter will be sent to all Board members to confirm approval of use on Web page and poster.

· Need some procedure/organization to help get new interested folks appropriately involved in Board activities.

· Need to have Board members at the Poster at NWQM Conference in Austin.

· Workgroup internal web pages do not generally need to be maintained any longer. Use perhaps for archiving workgroup documents.

NWQM Conference

· At beginning of each Workshop and Method track, have a brief (£ 5 minute) presentation of Board, its objectives, and solicit interest. Use same idea for all tracks to help focus the discussion and to help place talks and presentations into a larger context or strategy.

· Jennifer Pitt will make a list of who is free at a given time to man the Board/Council booth and poster and send to Herb and Charlie. Herb will coordinate with Jennifer to decide who from Council could man the booth.

· Registration fee is now $100 for Board and Council members.

National Water Quality Monitoring Council

· John Klein summarized the Council meeting in Atlanta in February. The next meeting will be more work-oriented and less “listening”. Atlanta meeting was useful for informing EPA Region.

· Data Management Workgroup has been absorbed into Boards’ WQDE group and the Councils’ Water Information Strategy group.

· Council doesn’t have a full roster yet. Working at getting other agencies on board.

· Planning for next ACWI meeting in May — getting those agencies that get CWAP funding to contribute to the Council and Board activities. A strategy will be laid out following the Conference in Austin.

· Next conference will be in Wisconsin in 2002. In 2001 efforts will be focused on regional and state councils.

Budget

· Jerry presented a summary of Tetra Tech’s qualitative estimates for Board support. At present, all high priority activities/products for which Tetra Tech provides support will be covered with current funding.

Other Business

· Ed Santoro has been coordinating a Monitoring Advisory Commission for the Delaware River Basin to help make monitoring more efficient and useful to resource agencies and the public. A proposal was submitted to the Presidents’ Council on Environment and Natural Resources for a Delaware Basin Pilot focusing on nutrients and nonpoint source pollution initially. It may be helpful to have a Council member make a presentation to Advisory Committee. The Committee may also be a resource for nutrient expertise for the Board. This may also be a good vehicle for getting NOAA more involved on a Council level. Herb suggested that Linda Green and Geoff Dates should be contacted since there is interest in volunteer monitoring in the Basin.

· Charlie has updated the Board Work Plan and is revising the Task list. Comments on the updated Workplan should be sent to Charlie within the next 2 weeks.

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